I dont think so especially with the poor design they show on their mockup. Personnally I find this ad totally non-informative. More, maybe it's because I'm canadian but I think the "They'd download it" is totally inapropriate. Hell, they'd not download it, they don't know what's a computer.
Anyway this kind of technology is far far away from production. I had the chance to work with these shape memory alloys (I made a small walking robot for a resaerch project at University) , and what we can read in the article is only the good side of them. In fact there are too many downsides yet:
1. The contraction speed is very fast, but the decontraction is very slow. This is because it's really easy to heat a metal at a high speed, using eather a heat source or electricity (I used electricity cause it's simpler), but to cool it at the same speed, you would need a cool liquid to flow through the wire. And to use two liquids in alternance means that you must have a hydraulic system for each fiber you want to contract/release.
2. The article says these "muscles" are strong. This is not the case. At least they could be used to move a tiny robot insect, but if you need to put the hydraulic cooling thing, forget it.
3. It's really hard to control the exact length of the muscle. Other than "completely long" or "completely short", you have a great time setting exactly the good temperature for a specific length. That is because these muscles have a great hysteresis curve, and two temperatures can give two lengths.
From the article : Holograms have advantages that make up for their relatively weak concentration power. They can select certain frequencies and focus them on solar cells that work best at those frequencies, converting the maximum possible light into electricity.
At first I found this sentence a bit funny, cause I didn't see why we should select a wavelength instead of capting all of them. You answered my question : since we can't concentrate all wavelenghts, we optimize things for the best one.
But we have to agree that is a tricky way to talk about a problem...
And we must not forget the publicity made by people in our neighboorhood (the most important form of publicity, in fact):
Roger (who likes to call himself a "tech guy") : Look, friend, my brand new home theatre. It uses the new Blu-ray technology
Friend : But what is that blu-ray ?
Roger : It's the tiny but powerful laser that reads the disk. It's blue cause that way it's way more powerful
Friend : ooooh, gosh it must sound good, a laser that's blue !
Roger : You bet.
Yes and no. The majority of sites can be viewed with Google Cache. Since it's not hosted on the blocked server, the site should be viewable. That don't comply with China's policy. In that point of view, Google IS censoring the internet.
Don't assume you were at fault, just because you need to jump through hoops to prevent your computer from getting infected.
Yes, but an OS can't know if the program run by a user is a trojan or a clean program. It's the user responsability to care of it. I agree that there should be a clear gap between user space and system and that's a big hole in most Windows configurations anyway, but everybody still need to care when they run any program. Period.
Anyway, IMHO :
1. An array of disk will always be faster than a simple disk, just because of the number of heads you can have.
2. An array of disks with redundant data will always be safer than a simple disk that can fail anytime.
I don't own a mac, but I know it is similar to my Linux box. Why doesn't it have a.jpeg extension ? On windows, an executable must be.exe,.com,.bat or.scr, but on a unix system, it just has to get the executable flag set. I guess if I was the trojan writer, I would have added the.jpeg extension (but then again, maybe the mac is different from UNIX on that point)...
I am very sceptic with these mice that are designed to reduce pain. Personally I use my mouse everyday and all day (like many of us) and I never ever felt even a small pain. Since I play piano for 20 years now, I'm just used to have a correct position. That's all it takes.
Sometimes I feel all these great shapes are very just a marketing thing : Sure, a new ergonomic mouse with no effort involved sells a lot better than a label with the correct position written on...
I guess it's a troll, but I'll feed it. The problem is not a lost of data. It is that (very) personal information has been stolen, including names, addresses, social security numbers, photos, diagnotics, x-rays, etc. Now just imagine how easy it could be to steal my identity if I am on these tapes... That matters.
That's not the real problem. The big problem is:
1. The superficy needed to grow the corn;
2. The amount of energy corn takes from the ground, resulting in an usable ground in a very little time.
The solution for our energy abuse is: Stop abusing energy.
Sometimes even logical solutions sound stupid.
That is what I done. Each computer on my network is backed up on another one, using rsync on a cron job. All you need is twice the space for your data (shouldn't matter). For the first sync, I unmounted the hard drives to get the files copied faster, but for all the subsequent sync, only the differences of files are sent to the network, so you can get your machines backed up each night.
Personally I love this setup and I don't worry anymore.
I guess it's just nostalgy, but I like so much the rectangular shape off the original NES controller... No bells and whistles. Just two plain buttons and a cross. Perfect.
The comfort is OK. I actually made one as thin as that one. It is just too simple :
1. A mouse
2. A brick
3. An impact.
Your mouse will then be as flat as mine.
Then you'll have to explain to me why a laser beam (that is light) could be damaging your data (that is stored in a magnetic form. Did I miss a physics course ?
The other day, I was thinking of removing the actual microcontroller in the mindstorm to change it for a Atmel AVR. It would be less powerful, but at least we could program in C instead of LabVIEW, and we could use all the new peripherals in that controller. But I never done it, and I guess a LabVIEW hack would be easier to realize.
In fact it's a sad story, it shows how it could be difficult to actually earn money from our inventions. It's not really motivating for me and many of us since we all are kind of inventors... Personally I don't think I'd have threw away millions of dollars in court like he did. Kudos to him !
Slashdot Mirror
I dont think so especially with the poor design they show on their mockup. Personnally I find this ad totally non-informative. More, maybe it's because I'm canadian but I think the "They'd download it" is totally inapropriate. Hell, they'd not download it, they don't know what's a computer.
My 0.02$.
Yes but does it run on linux ?
Anyway this kind of technology is far far away from production. I had the chance to work with these shape memory alloys (I made a small walking robot for a resaerch project at University) , and what we can read in the article is only the good side of them. In fact there are too many downsides yet :
1. The contraction speed is very fast, but the decontraction is very slow. This is because it's really easy to heat a metal at a high speed, using eather a heat source or electricity (I used electricity cause it's simpler), but to cool it at the same speed, you would need a cool liquid to flow through the wire. And to use two liquids in alternance means that you must have a hydraulic system for each fiber you want to contract/release.
2. The article says these "muscles" are strong. This is not the case. At least they could be used to move a tiny robot insect, but if you need to put the hydraulic cooling thing, forget it.
3. It's really hard to control the exact length of the muscle. Other than "completely long" or "completely short", you have a great time setting exactly the good temperature for a specific length. That is because these muscles have a great hysteresis curve, and two temperatures can give two lengths.
4. That is enough.
For those you are interested and french speaking, here's the article I wrote on the robot I made : http://www.polymtl.ca/lrn/chenier/MuscleWires.pdf
From the article :
Holograms have advantages that make up for their relatively weak concentration power. They can select certain frequencies and focus them on solar cells that work best at those frequencies, converting the maximum possible light into electricity.
At first I found this sentence a bit funny, cause I didn't see why we should select a wavelength instead of capting all of them. You answered my question : since we can't concentrate all wavelenghts, we optimize things for the best one.
But we have to agree that is a tricky way to talk about a problem...
And we must not forget the publicity made by people in our neighboorhood (the most important form of publicity, in fact) :
Roger (who likes to call himself a "tech guy") : Look, friend, my brand new home theatre. It uses the new Blu-ray technology
Friend : But what is that blu-ray ?
Roger : It's the tiny but powerful laser that reads the disk. It's blue cause that way it's way more powerful
Friend : ooooh, gosh it must sound good, a laser that's blue !
Roger : You bet.
Friend then buys his own home theater.
Yes and no. The majority of sites can be viewed with Google Cache. Since it's not hosted on the blocked server, the site should be viewable. That don't comply with China's policy. In that point of view, Google IS censoring the internet.
Don't assume you were at fault, just because you need to jump through hoops to prevent your computer from getting infected.
Yes, but an OS can't know if the program run by a user is a trojan or a clean program. It's the user responsability to care of it. I agree that there should be a clear gap between user space and system and that's a big hole in most Windows configurations anyway, but everybody still need to care when they run any program. Period.
Anyway, IMHO :
1. An array of disk will always be faster than a simple disk, just because of the number of heads you can have.
2. An array of disks with redundant data will always be safer than a simple disk that can fail anytime.
I don't own a mac, but I know it is similar to my Linux box. Why doesn't it have a .jpeg extension ? On windows, an executable must be .exe, .com, .bat or .scr, but on a unix system, it just has to get the executable flag set. I guess if I was the trojan writer, I would have added the .jpeg extension (but then again, maybe the mac is different from UNIX on that point)...
There's also Adobe Reader 7.
Your link doesn't work, it must be slashdotted. Anyone has a mirror ?
I am very sceptic with these mice that are designed to reduce pain. Personally I use my mouse everyday and all day (like many of us) and I never ever felt even a small pain. Since I play piano for 20 years now, I'm just used to have a correct position. That's all it takes.
Sometimes I feel all these great shapes are very just a marketing thing : Sure, a new ergonomic mouse with no effort involved sells a lot better than a label with the correct position written on...
0.02$
You're right. It helps the drug penetrate the body. And I tried it. I smoked my pot while listening a low frequency ultrasound and I felt 90% stoner !
I guess it's a troll, but I'll feed it. The problem is not a lost of data. It is that (very) personal information has been stolen, including names, addresses, social security numbers, photos, diagnotics, x-rays, etc. Now just imagine how easy it could be to steal my identity if I am on these tapes... That matters.
If it was the case, any web page would be illegal in US. Great !
That's not the real problem. The big problem is : ;
:
1. The superficy needed to grow the corn
2. The amount of energy corn takes from the ground, resulting in an usable ground in a very little time.
The solution for our energy abuse is
Stop abusing energy.
Sometimes even logical solutions sound stupid.
Mmmm : If you consider that a service between three stations is a full coverage, it's for you.
That is what I done. Each computer on my network is backed up on another one, using rsync on a cron job. All you need is twice the space for your data (shouldn't matter). For the first sync, I unmounted the hard drives to get the files copied faster, but for all the subsequent sync, only the differences of files are sent to the network, so you can get your machines backed up each night.
Personally I love this setup and I don't worry anymore.
I wonder what would happen in the case of a spark in the case. Let's say :
1. Oil burns
2. The computer is filled with oil
3. Oups.
I guess it's just nostalgy, but I like so much the rectangular shape off the original NES controller... No bells and whistles. Just two plain buttons and a cross. Perfect.
The comfort is OK. I actually made one as thin as that one. It is just too simple :
1. A mouse
2. A brick
3. An impact.
Your mouse will then be as flat as mine.
Then you'll have to explain to me why a laser beam (that is light) could be damaging your data (that is stored in a magnetic form. Did I miss a physics course ?
The other day, I was thinking of removing the actual microcontroller in the mindstorm to change it for a Atmel AVR. It would be less powerful, but at least we could program in C instead of LabVIEW, and we could use all the new peripherals in that controller. But I never done it, and I guess a LabVIEW hack would be easier to realize.
Linux Pratique : OpenOffice.org (last year), now Firefox, when will you swich to Linux?
Général Brachet : Thunderbird will be deployed as the only mail client on 45,000 seat in 2006.
Fun to know that after all this time, I actually ran Thunderbird OS...
In fact it's a sad story, it shows how it could be difficult to actually earn money from our inventions. It's not really motivating for me and many of us since we all are kind of inventors... Personally I don't think I'd have threw away millions of dollars in court like he did. Kudos to him !